How do you like Marxism now?

XXX

REF: Broader U-6 Unemployment Rate Hits 17.5%

The comprehensive gauge of labor underutilization, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification by the Labor Department, accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. Its continuing divergence from the official rate (the “U-3″ unemployment measure) indicates the job market has a long way to go before growth in the economy translates into relief for workers.

The U-6 rate is now the highest since the Labor Department started this particular data series in 1994. It likely isn’t as bad as it was in the 1980s, when the headline unemployment rate hit 10.8%. U-6 only goes back to 1994, but a discontinued measure has a longer history. That old U-6 measure peaked at 14.3% in 1982. Through some calculation, a comparable measure can be determined in the current report. Under the old U-6 methodology, the October rate would be 14%, the highest rate since 1982, but still below the peak.

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You're going to be really pissed when it starts going down.

Well, ok, but shit, most of the jobs lost were probably in some area like heavy industry, automotive, plastics or some other earth-killing work, so in the long run we will all be better off without them.

Or if not, hopefully they were in banking, insurance, oil or big drugs, some evil workers anyway.

All praise be to obama who is saving us from ourselves!

How's that? Obama going to borrow more money so he can dole out stimulus jobs that last a year at best?

That's cruel.

What if the stimulus job recipient uses one of Obama's Cash for Clunker programs to borrow more money under the expectation that he will have a job longer than a year? Think he will be able to keep payments on his 6 year loan that he put no money down which nothing went toward the principle after he losses his job?

The Marxist have a better chance of marketing that logic than pretending to know anything about creating jobs

It's interesting to note that this phenomenon came into play during the George Era as well. It was commonly shrieked herein, that the "4%+ a little", unemployment numbers achieved at some stages during the George Era were "equal to, or better than" the "4%+ a little" numbers we hit during the latter half of the Clinton Era. And of course..conventional economic wisdom holds that a "4%+ a little" American unemployment number essentially equals zero unemployment. The reasoning is that at that rate, everyone who wants a job, has a job.

But...Clinton's 4% and George's 4% absolutely did NOT represent the same thing. To George's number - were we to be honest with ourselves - we needed to add a significant "real unemployment" factor. The latter half of the Clinton Era was the last time we actually realized genuine "zero unemployment". In fact...at the risk of offending populists everywhere, I would suggest that we were perhaps, in an OVERemployment situation - with ITS attendent problems. In other words, too many people had jobs for which they weren't qualified and/or they were being compensated at an unsustainable level.

Anyway...it's important for us to consider the the underlying factors that create this difference between the "official" unemployment rate and the "real" unemployment rate. AND...we should ask ourselves if cutting taxes and public investment, makes sense in terms of addressing that gap. Or on the other hand...if we're serious about confronting the factors that've led us to this gap, might it make more sense to accelarate our investment in things like training, education, infrastructure, and especial new American wealth creation engines?

"It likely isn’t as bad as it was in the 1980s, when the headline unemployment rate hit 10.8%."

his country's economic health, would be suggesting..."Have patience. Saint Ronald suffered worse numbers in his THIRD year in office, yet Saint Ronald eventually saved our day!"